Droste Effect

art by Helen Hofling

by Samuel Piccone

Someone I love tells me the world is a house
            I’m always running into by running from,
                        that flowers begin staling the moment

they flower, so enough already with the flowers.
            A flower is a body, and a body is also a container
                        for every atom it will never hold—

imagine filling a room with so many remainders.
            Dear God, enough already. With running. With oblivion
                        and flowers. Someone I love tells me

no one will if I don’t start closing my mouth
            to breathe. When I pray, I’m too open. Bless me
                        a bed in the shape of a house,

render my body the window I’d always dreamed
                        lay somewhere on the surface of the world.
                                    To watch the world watch her own two hands

fiddle with each our little infinities
            is to love every second of it. The way flowers bloom
                        in the shape of a bed and of nothing.

Dear God, there’s too much
            and never enough. Someone I love tells me
                        they will times oblivion, will go

threshold to darkening threshold
            to find and keep me. They swear nothing matters
                        except the person who makes you

feel as at home as when you look in a mirror.
            They mean infinity,
                        I think.

---